John Caldigate Part 70

Mr. Babington, who was well known in Cambridge, asked many questions of many persons. From Mr. Seely he heard but little. Mr. Seely had heard of the arrest made at Plymouth, but did not quite know what to think about it. If it was all square, then he supposed his client must after all be innocent. But this went altogether against the grain with Mr.

Seely. 'If it be so, Mr. Babington,' he said, 'I shall always think the paying away of that twenty thousand pounds the greatest miracle I ever came across.' Nevertheless, Mr. Seely did believe that the two witnesses had been arrested on a charge of perjury.

The squire then went to the governor of the jail, who had been connected with him many years as a county magistrate. The governor had heard nothing, received no information as to his prisoner from any one in authority; but quite believed the story as to Crinkett and the woman.

'Perhaps you had better not see him, Mr. Babington,' said the governor, 'as he has heard nothing as yet of all this. It would not be right to tell him till we know what it will come to.' a.s.senting to this, Mr.

Babington took his leave with the conviction on his mind that the governor was quite prepared to receive an order for the liberation of his prisoner.

He did not dare to go to Robert Bolton's office, but he did call at the bank. 'We have heard nothing about it, Mr. Babington,' said the old clerk over the counter. But then the old clerk added in a whisper, 'None of the family take to the news, sir; but everybody else seems to think there is a great deal in it. If he didn't marry her I suppose he ought to be let out.'

'I should think he ought,' said the squire, indignantly as he left the bank.

Thus fortified by what he considered to be the general voice of Cambridge, he returned the same evening to Babington. Cambridge, including Mr. Caldigate, had been unanimous in believing the report. And if the report were true, then, certainly, was his nephew innocent. As he thought of this, some appropriate idea of the injustice of the evil done to the man and to the man's wife came upon him. If such were the treatment to which he and she had been subjected,--if he, innocent, had been torn away from her and sent to the common jail, and if she, certainly innocent, had been wrongly deprived for a time of the name which he had honestly given her,--then would it not have been right to open to her the hearts and the doors at Babington during the period of her great distress? As he thought of this he was so melted by ruth that a tear came into each of his old eyes. Then he remembered the attempt which had been made to catch this man for Julia--as to which he certainly had been innocent,--and his daughter's continued wrath. That a woman should be wrathful in such a matter was natural to him. He conceived that it behoved a woman to be weak, irascible, affectionate, irrational, and soft-hearted. When Julia would be loud in condemnation of her cousin, and would pretend to commiserate the woes of the poor wife who had been left in Australia, though he knew the source of these feelings, he could not be in the least angry with her. But that was not at all the state of his mind in reference to his son-in-law Augustus Smirkie. Sometimes, as he had heard Mr. Smirkie inveigh against the enormity of bigamy and of this bigamist in particular, he had determined that some 'odd-come-shortly,' as he would call it, he would give the vicar of Plum-c.u.m-Pippins a moral pat on the head which should silence him for a time. At the present moment when he got into his carriage at the station to be taken home, he was not sure whether or no he should find the vicar at Babington. Since their marriage, Mr. Smirkie had spent much of his time at Babington, and seemed to like the Babington claret.

He would come about the middle of the week and return on the Sat.u.r.day evening, in a manner which the squire could hardly reconcile with all that he had heard as to Mr. Smirkie's exemplary conduct in his own parish. The squire was hospitality itself, and certainly would never have said a word to make his house other than pleasant to his own girl's husband. But a host expects that his corns should be respected, whereas Mr. Smirkie was always treading on Mr. Babington's toes. Hints had been given to him as to his personal conduct which he did not take altogether in good part. His absence from afternoon service had been alluded to, and it had been suggested to him that he ought sometimes to be more careful as to his language. He was not, therefore ill-disposed to resent on the part of Mr. Smirkie the spirit of persecution with which that gentleman seemed to regard his nephew. 'Is Mr. Smirkie in the house,' he asked the coachman. 'He came by the 3.40, as usual,' said the man. It was very much 'as usual,' thought the squire.

'There isn't a doubt about it,' said the squire to his wife as he was dressing. 'The poor fellow is as innocent as you.'

'He can't be,--innocent,' said aunt Polly.

'If he never married the woman whom they say he married he can't be guilty.'

'I don't know about that, my dear.'

'He either did marry her or he didn't, I suppose.'

'I don't say he married her, but,--he did worse.'

'No, he didn't,' said the squire.

'That may be your way of thinking of it. According to my idea of what is right and what is wrong, he did a great deal worse.'

'But if he didn't marry that woman he didn't commit bigamy when he married this one,' argued he, energetically.

'Still he may have deserved all he got.'

'No; he mayn't. You wouldn't punish a man for murder because he doesn't pay his debts.'

'I won't have it that he's innocent,' said Mrs. Babington.

'Who the devil is, if you come to that?'

'You are not, or you wouldn't talk in that way. I'm not saying anything now against John. If he didn't marry the woman I suppose they'll let him out of prison, and I for one shall be willing to take him by the hand; but to say he's innocent is what I won't put up with!'

'He has sown his wild oats, and he's none the worse for that. He's as good as the rest of us, I dare say.'

'Speak for yourself,' said the wife. 'I don't suppose you mean to tell me that in the eyes of the Creator he is as good a man as Augustus.'

'Augustus be ----.' The word was spoken with great energy. Mrs.

Babington at the moment was employed in sewing a b.u.t.ton on the wristband of her husband's s.h.i.+rt, and in the start which she gave stuck the needle into his arm.

'Humphrey!' exclaimed the agitated lady.

'I beg your pardon, but not his,' said the squire, rubbing the wound.

'If he says a word more about John Caldigate in my presence, I shall tell him what I think about it. He has got his wife, and that ought to be enough for him.'

After that they went down-stairs and dinner was at once announced.

There was Mr. Smirkie to give an arm to his mother-in-law. The squire took his married daughter while the other two followed. As they crossed the hall Julia whispered her cousin's name, but her father bade her be silent for the present. 'I was sure it was not true,' said Mrs.

Smirkie.

'Then you're quite wrong,' said the squire, 'for it's as true as the Gospel.' Then there was no more said about John Caldigate till the servants had left the room.

Mr. Smirkie's general appreciation of the good things provided, did not on this occasion give the owner of them that gratification which a host should feel in the pleasures of his guests. He ate a very good dinner and took his wine with a full appreciation of its merits. Such an appet.i.te on the part of his friends was generally much esteemed by the squire of Babington, who was apt to press the bottle upon those who sat with him, in the old-fas.h.i.+oned manner. At the present moment he eyed his son-in-law's enjoyments with a feeling akin to disappointment. There was a habit at Babington with the ladies of sitting with the squire when he was the only man present till he had finished his wine, and, at Mrs.

Smirkie's instance, this custom was continued when she and her husband were at the house. Fires had been commenced, and when the dinner-things had been taken away they cl.u.s.tered round the hearth. The squire himself sat silent in his place, out of humour, knowing that the peculiar subject would be introduced, and determined to make himself disagreeable.

'Papa, won't you bring your chair round?' said one of the girls who was next to him. Whereupon he did move his chair an inch or two.

'Did you hear anything about John?' said the other unmarried sister.

'Yes, I heard about him. You can't help hearing about him in Cambridge now. All the world is talking about him.'

'And what does all the world say?' asked Julia, flippantly. To this question her father at first made no answer. 'Whatever the world may say, I cannot alter my opinion,' continued Julia. 'I shall never be able to look upon John Caldigate and Hester Bolton as man and wife in the sight of G.o.d.'

'I might just as well take upon myself to say that I didn't look upon you and Smirkie as man and wife in the sight of G.o.d.'

'Papa!' screamed the married daughter.

'Sir!' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the married son-in-law.

'My dear, that is a strange thing to say of your own child,' whispered the mother.

'Most strange!' said Julia, lifting both her hands up in an agony.

'But it's true,' roared the squire. 'She says that, let the law say what it may, these people are not to be regarded as man and wife.'

'Not by me,' said Julia.

'Who are you that you are to set up a tribunal of your own? And if you judge of another couple in that way, why isn't some one to judge of you after the same fas.h.i.+on?'

'There is the verdict,' said Mr. Smirkie. 'No verdict has p.r.o.nounced me a bigamist.'

'But it might for anything I know,' said the squire, angrily. 'Some woman might come up in Plum-c.u.m-Pippins and say you had married her before your first wife.'

'Papa, you are very disagreeable,' said Julia.

'Why shouldn't there be a wicked lie told in one place as well as in another? There has been a wicked lie told here; and when the lie is proved to have been a lie, as plain as the nose on your face, he is to tell me that he won't believe the young folk to be man and wife because of an untrue verdict! I say they are man and wife;--as good a man and wife as you and he;--and let me see who'll refuse to meet them as such in my house?'

Mr. Smirkie had not, in truth, made the offensive remark. It had been made by Mrs. Smirkie. But it had suited the squire to attribute it to the clergyman. Mr. Smirkie was now put upon his mettle, and was obliged either to agree or to disagree. He would have preferred the former, had he not been somewhat in awe of his wife. As it was, he fell back upon the indiscreet a.s.sertion which his father-in-law had made some time back. 'I, at any rate, sir, have not had a verdict against me.'

'What does that signify?'